Plankton Wat's the solo project of Dewey Mahood, a key member of Eternal Tapestry, and occasional part of the Jackie-O Motherfucker swarm/collective. It's a beautiful, graceful thing of looped and picked acoustic guitar, following a wander-glimmer-drone structure that psych fans in Portland should be well aqua...
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A living, breathing version of Calvin Johnson's short-lived Sons of the Soil project will almost certainly never exist again. But a new release is about to resurrect its sound. Four years ago, the Blow's Khaela Maricich and nomadic folk troubadour Jason Anderson—longtime friends and tourmates of the K Re...
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[AMBIENT HAUNT] We should expect nothing less than a devastating masterpiece from such a talented, prolific figure as Honey Owens, a.k.a. Valet. And Blood Is Clean—which was re-released internationally last week by Chicago's renowned post-everything label, Kranky—is just that. It's a devastating ma...
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Calvin Johnson's latest puts his K Recs kin to good use.

Music Stories
A living, breathing version of Calvin Johnson's short-lived Sons of the Soil project will almost certainly never exist again. But a new release is about to resurrect its sound. Four years ago, the Blo ...
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Valet's debut elicits chills of the best and most timeless sort.

Music Stories
[AMBIENT HAUNT] We should expect nothing less than a devastating masterpiece from such a talented, prolific figure as Honey Owens, a.k.a. Valet. And Blood Is Clean—which was re-released internat ...
More

A brief disclaimer: Mbilly, a.k.a. Will Helfrich, is something of a friend of mine. We get along, sometimes we talk about our respective days, and sometimes about music. Yesterday morning, he bought me a coffee. Through "the network" his CD reached me not too long ago, and, as so shamefully happens, I sat on it fo...
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[PROG PUNK] It would have been incredibly easy for 31Knots to wreck its fourth album with conceptual/experimental grandiosity. Though The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere—in the immediate, anyhow—is a fairly standard prog punk album, it's also littered throughout with odd, vaguely creepy samples of little-kid choirs, noise, ambient breaks and other seeming sideshows. Add to that ...
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[BRICOLAGE] "Break character" represents a couple of things. First, it's a theatrical term. Second, it denotes a 9-month-old freeform project of loose sampling, fluttering flute loops, turntablism and a wee bit of good ol' fashioned echo-chamber crunk (imagine DJ Shadow getting down with Brian Eno and the Books). The musical project Break Character is comprised of two local gentleman who go by Tac...
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31Knots gets fancy on its latest, but doesn't lose the point.

Music Stories
[PROG PUNK] It would have been incredibly easy for 31Knots to wreck its fourth album with conceptual/experimental grandiosity. Though The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere—in the immediate, ...
More